THE ARSE
by East US Coaster
Summary: The arithmancy behind potions and spells is like the buffer solution in a chemical experiment allowing variance in the inputs to deliver a similar result. Of course power is lost, but it is worth the price paid to enable a consistent result. Ritual magic is unfettered, magic in the raw. Amazing and catastrophic are the possible results, and then there are times it is both. One shot


_**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling_

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THE ARSE begins here

Harry and Ron followed their marks carefully beneath the invisibility cloak. Sure enough both of their targets of opportunity upon seeing the plate with two large cakes they had baited the trap with, ran to it. Both Crabbe and Goyle, proceeded to stuff their faces. It was both disgusting, and amazing how much food they could stuff into their mouths without choking.

Once the boys were asleep thanks to the potion laced cakes, Harry and Ron each stole a hair from their respective target's head. It was the final ingredient in the polyjuice potion they were going to use to infiltrate the Slytherin common room. A potion that their best friend had managed to brew while the three of them were only second years.

"Hey, help me hide them in this cupboard." Ron called out to Harry. Wanting to free his hands for the task he placed his invisibility cloak on the ground and placed the stolen hair, and wand on top. With hands freed he ran to help Ron drag first Goyle, and then Crabbe into the broom closet. It took a bit of time as even though there were two of them. Each of the Slytherin boys were solid, and weighed every pound of it.

The third deathly hallow had been separated from the death stick for hundreds of years since the three brothers went their separate ways. Upon it rested a wand of holly. The wood of life and spirituality. Further, within this wand for its core was a tail feather of a phoenix. If any animal represented life it would be the one that lives eternal. It helped that the owner of the wand was known as 'the boy-who-lived.' Ritual magic is dangerous because you can't control it like a potion or a spell. Both of those have arithmetic formulas that buffer the result. It causes the delivered result to be weaker as power is lost, but the consistent range of results obtained is easily worth the lost potential. Ritual magic uses emotions, elements, legends, and symbols. It draws on ancient magic with differing amounts of order and chaos as the celestial bodies wax and wane. It always delivers a unique result because even the happiness of a moment ago has changed. There is no possible way to ever have the same set of ingredients. So even after monumental amounts of careful study, and exacting selection of the inputs, the ritual could only be shaped in the most general of terms.

Ritual magic can do nothing, cause a catastrophe, like the sinking of a city state, or it can create something completely new. After Atlantis sunk, most magical Governments immediately banned or set out to control ritual magic. In Great Britain it is only allowed to be cast in a sub-department of the Department of Mysteries. Which is fine and all, but a ritual can occur spontaneously by accident. So one must guess the legislature means to prevent intended ritual based magics, though it is not stated so in the written law.

While Harry was struggling to drag two boys, he drew from both physical and magical reserves to do the job, as every magical does when exerting themselves. His wand that had chosen him, and bonded to his magic from the use of more than a year, cast magic too. Sympathetic magic, when like induces like.

The ritual took the inputs of Harry's struggle so far with his fated life that his wand, his bonded companion faced together with him against open evil, and veiled evil done both by intent and hubris. It took the sacrifice of the hair as the spark to start, but needed a greater sacrifice. It found an odd fragmented piece of soul that lived as a parasite, and it chose to take its life. The knowledge and talents were left behind without life to control, and keep them separate.

The invisibility cloak began to change to not only hide the wearer from death, but now also from life. In order to do that it would need its wearer to be immune to the Fates' tapestry of life. Their thread would no longer be spun by Clotho, twyned by Lachesis, or able to be ended by being cut by Atropos's scissors. Of course here the ritual was in conflict as the current owner of this hallow was very much bound to all three Fates. The ritual was thus halted for how could it remove from the Fates an owner that could lose, sell or give up ownership. The tracking charm Albus Dumbledore had added to a thread of demiguise hair, and then used magic cast from the first of the three hallows, to hide it within the invisibility cloak before returning the cloak to his weapon could not be allowed to remain stuck to the cloak though. There was no conflict baring this change. The tracking magic on this added thread was burnt from it. It was now visible on the cloak as a single thread of hair,no longer bound to the cloak.

If there had been a second hair of Goyle's, or even if it were a different one plucked,or if there had been no fragment of soul to provide the needed life as a sacrifice to power the ritual, the result would have been different. If either of the other two fragments of the same soul chosen to fuel the ritual that were also currently located in Hogwarts, had been closer at this point in time, they would have changed what happened. Even if Harry had made one more friend or slipped one time more, then the ritual could have done nothing, or most likely not even been activated. The chance of it destroying Hogwarts was probably limited due to Fates' prophesy that held his life to only be taken by the one that only he could kill. The infinite other possibilities are unknown from the one that occurred though. It was an incomplete ritual because numerous powers both alive and immortal were in play, and each prevented the other from resolving it.

So both Ron and Harry joined Hermione in the second floor haunted girl's bathroom, oblivious to the active ritual, keyed to the deathly hallow in Harry's school robe pocket waiting to find a way to resolve itself. Harry effectively had an armed weapon with safety off just waiting for something to pull the trigger. To offer a path to balance all that were at odds.

No notice of a change was witnessed even when the wrong hair was used in Harry's potion. The right one having been used as the spark of initial sacrifice. The potion seemed to behave the same way as Ron's after its added ingredient. As did the dose taken by Hermione that also like Harry's contained an animal hair, where it must be used with human hair only. Of course hers was a mundane animal while Harry's from a magical creature. So there was a greater lethal issue with his dose. The two boys, and girl seemed to experience the same pain as each other to the forced change. In fact it wasn't even the ritual that was noticed but a side effect of the unfinished ritual that was finally noticed. For as Ron became Crabbe, and Hermione refused to say what she had become, Harry became translucent.

"Harry, you're dead like me. You can share my toilet."A blushing Myrtle informed Harry. This was far better than watching a girl weep because she had fur, cat ears and a tail, while remaining locked in a stall. She could have a boyfriend. She had felt cheated as she hadn't got to ever have one of those prior to her death. It was even better after Ron went to find out what Draco knew about the heir of Slytherin, and the opening of the chamber of secrets. As she was so close to resolving her unfinished business, Death was drawn near. Where previously the ritual was unbalanced in their being far more inputs of life than death, now there was a chance to find balance.

Ron had grumbled but finally left. He could see why, or perhaps it is correct to say he could not see why Harry could join him, as he obviously was still Harry even if he was now a ghost. However, Hermione refused to exit the stall so he only knew it was bad from a giggling ghost. Surely it was not as bad as being dead, and it was not right that he had to do everything.

Yes, Myrtle was happy as she sat on Harry's lap, her hands hugging his torso to her. He couldn't escape from there too easily as she had sat on him earlier when he stopped rolling around on the ground in pain while becoming translucent. Sure she could have helped him up, but she wanted a boyfriend, and Harry for all his translucence was nicely solid unlike all other ghosts. While she was in contact with him she was solid too for some reason. Not having to worry about accidently sinking into the floor was a wonderful new feeling. It was almost like being alive once more. So with grumbling Ron now gone, and catty Hermione stuck in the loo, afraid to show herself to her friends, Myrtle had the new ghost of the boy-who-lived with no distractions.

In fact as Harry himself was distracted, now would be the time to get her true love's first kiss taken care of. As she snogged the startled boy upon whom she sat the ritual finally completed for balance had been found that enabled all parties that had a stake in this to reach a compromise. Surprisingly for once it was the Fates that lost the most in the compromise.

The shape changing ability of the now lethal polyjuice potion, denied to kill by the Fates the one that had imbibed it, became an additional power of the cloaks to meet Chaos's need. The cloak was bound in the union of the dead and living, furthering its power that it had started toward. The power to enable hiding from both life and death, of being out of the purview of Fate. Its ability to hide what is covered was changed like the demiguise hair it was made from to enable the couple to fade anywhere from visible through invisible as the cloak actually became part of each. This great and more precise control met Order's desire. While by fusing the cloak with a child of life, and a child of death it limited the loss to the Fates. For their whole tapestry could fall apart if the ownership could be exchanged, as each new wearer's thread was removed for ever from their control. Finally the lost portability of the cloak being able to transfer from one to another was compromised with the Fates to allow a temporary transference by physical touch.

Thus as long as one of the couple held a hand of another then this held person could access the powers of shape changing, invisibility, and being partially and momentarily outside the purview of Fate, but at Fate's cost. For upon letting go of physical contact they are available for the Fates to manipulate once more, and will be of infinitely more interest to them. In seeming to give more the Fates regained some control on the two threads they had lost forever. One of which, they needed for what they had decreed to happen. The Fates thought they had been clever with the whole, 'power he knows not.' It was rather embarrassing to have your own constraint be the cause to losing complete control of two threads. One of which they had even cut. The Dark Lord was still able to be manipulated by the Fates, and their prophesy was still intact. Not in a way they liked of course.

Harry had been through a traumatic experience. He accepted the hug from Myrtle as at least she was no longer teasing Hermione. After Hermione calms down she can help him work out what happened to him. He needed to think about how he died, to help Hermione help him. The potion had not worked for Hermione, as she had used a cat's hair instead of Bulstrode's. He though had used the hair he plucked from Goyle's head. It was still on the cloak when he returned from putting Malfoy's goons into the broom closet. Though when he thought about it the hair had moved from where he placed it, and could it have been longer? So perhaps he had used a different animal's hair. What if Goyle's hair had fallen or blown off the cloak? Then like in Hermione's case where the hair from the clothing had come from an animal, so must have his. Then he wasn't dead, he just for an hour looked dead. What animals looked like ghosts? His thinking was derailed when Myrtle started snogging him.

It felt nice to have a girl sitting on your lap, hugging you tightly and playing tonsil hockey with your tongue. It was definitely in the top five list of things best experienced in his life so far. True her large glasses tended to make her eyes bigger, and she had a rather annoying propensity to whine and enjoy another's misfortune, but with his scrawny under fed frame and bad eyesight he couldn't really throw stones. Also she had been given a rather bad deal from the deck of life. Hold on, initially she had felt cold and incorporeal, but now she felt warm. Her mouth that was kissing his was warm, moist and there were two pleasant bumps pushing into his torso due to her clinging arms drawing him close to her.

As Death was near but due to the third hallow of death now new born as the first hallow of life and death, it was unable to bring the shade with its finished business back into its realm. Instead the rest of Myrtle he had previously reaped returned from his realm to the land of the living. Myrtle was dead no more.

Hecate finally was able to gleefully inform a deity that had been a little full of itself for a couple of thousand years. "A measly three days I just did fifty years. Beat that!"

Hermione found the two of them in a rather heated exchange of saliva when she stepped out to find out if Harry was really dead, and why it had got so quite in the bathroom. As they ignored her request to stop making out in the girl's loo she decided to shake some sense into Harry. She also was rather jealous, was that what the boy-who-lived was interested in, a girl-who-died. It was when her hand went translucent when she shook Harry that she wondered what was going on as Harry was too solid to be a ghost. Myrtle also was no longer wearing the glasses her ghost had been wearing.

Myrtle was rather upset that her snogging had been interrupted, but was happy to now apparently be alive. She was also happy to be able to change what she looked like, and fade to look like a ghost or become completely invisible. Not having to wear glasses was a boon as well. Especially as she no longer had them.

Hermione was happy to discover she could look like herself if she held either Harry's or Myrtle's hand. The three came to an agreement that unless this all ended in an hour then Myrtle would start as a first year next year. Until then she would stay invisible unless it was just the two of them. As Hermione always had wanted a sibling and she needed to hold one of their hands to not look like a cat girl if her polyjuice accident wasn't resolved in an hour's time, then Myrtle would live with Hermione as her younger sister. Her parents had been upset they couldn't have another child too, so hopefully they could convince them to adopt Myrtle. Harry didn't want anyone to have to endure his relatives' hospitality so was quite fine with the agreement. Though Myrtle seemed put out he didn't even offer to get her to stay with him during the holidays.

Hermione had been pacing as a cat girl, and unknowingly was being slightly influenced. "Myrtle you will have to let my parents chose you a different name so it can appear that the ghost that haunted this bathroom passed on. You also should change yourself to look like I would if I was ten." She had decided there was plenty of time to study memory charms to ensure her parents accepted their second daughter. Also even if Harry still kisses Myrtle when she is a younger girl, then it will get him used to the possibility of kissing Hermione as they will look so similar. She would get Harry to be her boyfriend and no ghost-that-now-lives will get in her way.

Myrtle happily made herself look like a slightly younger Hermione. She decided on looking nearly thirteen though, and not losing her curves. Thus she was mainly shorter which actually made her curves more noticeable. She then proceeded to kiss Harry again in case this ended in an hour, Hermione became quite conflicted. For now she saw a barely younger version of herself kissing a boy she quite liked. She also couldn't get Myrtle to make herself look young enough. No matter how many times she said the girl was looking too old for ten. Harry looked really dashing with his glasses removed. She would need to change the lenses to plain glass and get him to wear them though. She needed him to hide those gorgeous emerald orbs from all the other girls in Hogwarts.

An hour had been and gone and they were still able to do what they had discovered. Myrtle went invisible in preparation for Ron coming back and Hermione held Harry's hand. What she didn't know was an invisible Myrtle was holding on to Harry's other side as Myrtle had become a bit jealous of Hermione.

Myrtle still knew she needed to be invisible. She did not want Ron to know she was alive. She didn't trust the ministry to not find a way to drag her into the department of mysteries to experiment on. Ron was known to have zero filter between his mouth and brain according to Hermione, and though initially Harry disagreed, he eventually said Ron did too. So she was invisible, and Hermione was holding Harry's hand, and she couldn't find a solution that would stop that. Though it grated at her, and she couldn't shake the feeling that Hermione was manipulating the situation to steal her boyfriend.

Unfortunately, they had seen that when she was invisible it was harder for Hermione to stay visible holding Myrtle's invisible hand. They had found that Hermione could not be the complete opposite of the hand she held. So if Myrtle was completely invisible then Hermione could at most be about three quarters visible. They were hoping that in the poor lighting of late evening and early morning a barely visible Myrtle can go to the girl's dormitories with a nearly completely visible Hermione, and no one notice.

Just then the bathroom door opened and a disgruntled Ron entered. "Oh, good Harry you were just dead for an hour then? Oy! Why're you both holding hands?"

"We're just happy to be back to normal. Ron we both were worried, and scared to not return to normal." Harry said to deflate the Weasley temper before it erupted.

They had decided to not mention that Hermione had to hold his hand, nor that they could go transparent or become invisible. Ron would then ask for the cloak as Harry didn't need it anymore being that he could go invisible himself. Then they would have to say they seemed to have lost the cloak. Hermione thought that Harry and Myrtle had somehow absorbed the cloak. He had no idea if that was true, but the cloak was gone. As invisibility cloaks only last a few years they figured they could say it stopped working, and his Uncle took it from him during the summer holidays. All three did not want to be experimented on, and this way no one would know they had suffered a polyjuice accident.

Accidental Ritual for Soul Exorcism – A.R.S.E. – This is the end of THE ARSE currently…

Cheers

eUSc

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3500+ - please review


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